1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to skating rinks and, more particularly, to portable ice skating rink.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ice skating is a popular activity but requires that one wishing to skate on ice or play a friendly game of ice hockey go a to the local city indoor arena or outdoor winter rinks and these facilities are not always available, being subject to organized hockey schedules, and the like. Also, such public ice skating rinks are often very populated or busy, aside from being located remotely from one's home.
Accordingly, portable ice skating rinks have become popular and one can always resort to old fashioned frozen ponds or to artificially flooded sheets of ice on private yards. Such artificial home ice rinks require a tremendous amount of water, and thus time, as water is initially absorbed by the lawn until it has become saturated. If, after the ice skating surface has been constructed, it is subjected to higher temperatures, the ice may melt and be at least partly, if not completely, absorbed by the lawn thereby requiring a complete reconstruction of the ice rink. Finally, frozen water laid directly on grass results in damage to the grass' roots which thereafter causes yellow grass in the spring which even carries into summer. Ice rinks constructed directly onto lawns are also difficult to level as the ice will follow the geometric configuration of the lawn surface.
As an improvement over these natural or artificial outdoors ice skating rinks, U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,857 issued to Burley on Aug. 4, 1992 discloses a portable ice rink comprising a plastic sheeting having its edges overlapping a peripheral barrier adapted to hold the sheet in place on the ground and to provide a barrier for the formation of ice on the plastic sheeting. The peripheral barrier is made of a number of elongated sectional flexible closed cell rods fitted into straight tubular rigid fittings such as to define the sides of the rink, whereas corner tubular rigid fittings being provided for assembling the sides of the rink into a closed loop with the ends of the flexible rods of each side being fitted in respective corner fittings. Once this peripheral frame or barrier has been assembled, the plastic sheeting is laid such as to cover the entire inner area defined thereby and also to overlap the barrier. The plastic sheeting is draped over the barrier and resilient C-shaped liner retaining clips are applied over the plastic sheeting and barrier in a spaced apart distributed fashion all along the peripheral barrier thereby attaching the sheeting to the barrier. The barrier is particularly useful in preventing, to some extent, water overspills.